You say potato, I say potahto...

We've all been there, intently reading a
recipe, when suddenly a foreign word or unfamiliar ingredient
causes us to pause because we don't know how to pronounce it. If
you are like me, you sound out the word in your head and use that
pronunciation going forward. Then you hear a famous chef say the
word, and you realize that the voice in your head is really bad at
French…and Italian, and Spanish, and frequently even English. (Or
maybe that's just me.)

The Guardian recently produced an excellent piece on mispronounced food words,
and I admit that I have mispronounced some of the words described
in the article. But apparently I'm in good company, because as
Richard Ehrlich (chairman of the Guild of Food Writers) explains,
"One of the most eminent chefs of modern times doesn't pronounce
daube correctly." He does not identify the chef, but knowing that
even professionals stumble on pronunciation makes me feel better.
The Guardian's list of mispronounced words is fairly
short, but Buzzfeedprovides an expanded
list.

Don't be chagrined if you are stumped by
how to correctly say these words: even the writers of the
articles can't agree on which pronunciation is correct.
The Guardian advocates a different pronunciation for
sriracha than iVillage does in its list: see-rah-cha
versus shree-ra-cha. Buzzfeed disagrees
with iVillage on how to say gyro:
yeer-ho, says one, jeer-o says
the other. That discord makes me even more hesitant to order the
endive or Niçoise salad. And I will never order the
mille feuille.